Winglock
by StArBarD
Summary: Welcome to my Wing!lock AU, in which Sherlock Holmes is the Winglock Wonder, a fast-rising detective possesed of a pair of stunning wings that he cannot use due to the government's new restrictions on winged citizens! He resents the Icarus law, and his ground-bound flatmate resents seeing his friend caged, but a little birdy hints change is on the wing!
1. Brood

Sherlock sat at the window, staring moodily at the ground-dwellers who ambled across the street, smarmily laughing at one woman who had the audacity to trip like the slave to gravity she was.

John Watson desperately clung to the newspaper he'd been attempting to read, hopelessly trying to keep the fingers of wind from tearing the pages out of his grasp.

When the Sport's section he'd been engrossed in slipped out of his hands and flew away, he decided that enough was enough.

"Could you please stop doing that?" He asked Sherlock for what felt like the hundredth time.

Sherlock, who had been testily flapping his great, feathery appendages in utter boredom spun around to confront this challenge to his moodiness, knocking over great piles of books and papers from the nearby desk as he turned. The floor was littered with many such accidents; John practically had to wade in and out of the flat.

"Doing what?" Sherlock sneered.

"Making hurricanes. It's becoming a problem." John said patiently.

"At least I exercise all of my limbs. Look at you: you've been sitting there for the better half of an hour. No wonder you tired so easily on our last case."

John blew air through his cheeks in mild frustration. He'd always assumed that angels were benevolent because they spent so much time in the high atmosphere, where there was less oxygen. Their nutrient starved brains made them hear voices and songs in the clouds and from the trees, and feel overwhelming love for all of god's creatures. Now he realized that with great power came great bigotry, and he was attempting to placate nature's prime example.

"No, I tired so easily because I couldn't keep up with the _Winglock Wonder_. Pardon me for being born without feathers."

Sherlock's own downy feathers bristled unkindly, in clear defense of his delicate ego.

"I didn't mean it like that." John said. He knew that Sherlock was very protective of his flight-worthy status. His latest aerodynamic nickname, which was plastered over the front of every major magazine in the flashiest, most flamboyant colors that would make Charles Lindenburgh cringe and Houdini turn his head in shame, was a needle that irritated him to no end.

"I didn't either. You kept up well. Where did Lestrade end up?"

John chuckled lightly, remembering the red-faced little detective wheezing, clutching a stich in his side as he trotted up to the two of them and hoarsely directing the official arrest of the criminal. "Somewhere near the Thames, I think."

"You were just slow enough to be in the right place at the right time, otherwise he might've escaped on foot. Good show, by the way."

"Thanks." John said, uncertain if he should take offense at the 'slow' comment, or be pleased at the rare acknowledgement. In the end, he simply gathered up the newspaper as best he could.

"Although if he had escaped on foot, I could be making patrol loops right now, instead of wasting away indoors."

"Oh, not _this_ again!" John covered his face with the remainder of the paper in a clever tent.

"Yes _this_." Sherlock said, fixing John with his steely glint. "Always _this_, forever _this_."

"It's not as if there's nothing to be done about the flat." John said reasonably.

"Nothing fun." Sherlock said crossing his arms moodily, batting his fluffy white wings, sending a few papers drifting off on the brief gusts. From out the window of his flat, he could see a few policemen making their own aerial routes above the city. The lurid flashing of their orange 'clearance' belts gave them away, even from miles across the city. He wished more than ever he'd been able to keep Lestrade from confiscating his as he watched one officer with mouse colored wings dive and swoop on an updraft. God, how he envied them.

"You could pick up a bit."

Sherlock snorted a coarse, unkind laugh.

"Oh, fine." John said. He hadn't been serious, just a little bit hopeful. "You could go out to Tesco's?"

Sherlock snarled and cut an angry path through the room, stepping over garbage as easily as he walked on air. In a furious huff he sat himself down Indian-style on his favorite plush stool and made a powerful pout.

"You know I hate that store." He said delicately. "They're isles are too narrow."

He flapped his beloved wings forlornly, and his pout melted into the wistfulness that John was beginning to see more and more of as their weeks passed together. It must've been a terrible thing to have a gift so wonderfully magnificent, so powerfully revered, and yet so horribly crippling.

"You're right." John said sadly. "It's too bad they don't accommodate the ultra-minorities like yourself."

"We could sue." Sherlock said almost cheerfully. John favored him with a sunny smile.

Sherlock thoughtfully flapped his wings, and then pensively folded them again. He steepled his fingers and brought them to his chin until he looked truly angelic, complete with the pure, meditative expression once his frustration melted away.

"I want to fly in the daylight again." He said. It was not a plea, nor was it accompanied with the usual emotion connected with it. It was a simple statement of his one, true desire.

"We've been over this before." John said in anxious anticipation.

"I can't accept it; therefore we go over it again." Sherlock muttered.

John grimaced and turned his face away from Sherlock, he didn't want to look at his angelic friend and think of the building of parliament at the same time; it was a sickening picture, as though the building served as a great cage with Roman-Pillar bars, trussing his friend with chains of legal paper.

"John, it wouldn't _hurt_ anyone…" Sherlock pressed.

"No." John blankly said.

"Just for an hour or so."

"Sherlock." John said, trying his best to keep his face straight. "No."

His feathered friend flexed his anxious wings. They itched to kiss the atmosphere, to tickle the belly of the sky. He, himself, longed to shower in a cloud and dry himself in a jet stream, to feel the icy wind roaring through his ears and gently caressing his skin with its sensuous touch.

"They passed the Icarus law to _protect_ people with wings." John tried to reason cautiously.

"Well, it feels like they're jealous, and trying to put us in cages." Sherlock sighed huffily, and made a similar noise by brushing the feathers of his two extended appendages together.

"I know," John said, feeling his heart break for his friend. "I'm sorry, truly, but it's against the law."

Sherlock refused to look at John, and instead stared doggedly at the floor.

John picked himself up out of his chair and stretched his legs, his only form of locomotion, pacing around the floor once, before finally settling on leaning against the window.

"Sherlock, you know I'd do anything for you…but the price of getting caught in daylight… it's too high."

Sherlock's silence was louder than an objection would have been.

"They'd clip…" John couldn't bring himself to say the rest. He looked down to the sidewalk and watched the ambling little routes people made amongst themselves. He spotted one person with a stunted pair of gray wings projecting from the folds of an equally ugly green jumper.

Wings, on people, came in all of the colors in the rainbow, and unfortunately in all sizes. Wing size was generally genetic, meaning that if a person had a mother with long wings and a father with short wings, they would themselves have either long or short wings. A few people even made a market of pure-breeding babies with the largest, most elegant wings; which was, of course, totally illegal.

Sherlock's family, it seemed, bred for wing quality mainly. The reclusive avian man had never let very much about his personal life slip, but it was apparent, even to John that Sherlock had grown with people who had encouraged his strange gift, and he imagined who had encouraged him to fly regularly and often in the rolling country sky of some large manor home that would have suited the Holmes' sense of fashionable wealth and quality.

Then again, most people simply did not have wings at all. In fact, it was rather difficult to find someone with wings in adulthood. It was an obvious fact of life that winged people were discriminated against for jobs as a minority, and had difficulty finding clothes, or sitting in chairs with a back. Many parents would have their children's wings surgically removed as babies to save them the hassle later on, as Sgt. Donovan's had. Still others thought it was a God-sent miracle, and would allow their children's wings to grow, and eventually teach their children to fly (somehow).

John didn't know what Sherlock's story was exactly, but it soon became apparent that surgery had never been an option. The wings protruding easily from his back were some of the largest wings that John had ever seen. Any attempt at amputation would mean taking a dangerous amount of blood from Sherlock's body. The wing joints were too close to the lungs to even try. That and the feathered detective would rather lose his arms than part with his luscious, pearly white beautiful gifts of aviation.

"Can't you…" John started and failed to speak. His earlier failure seemed to have sapped him of his confidence. Thinking about Sherlock's childhood had, naturally led him to think of Sherlock's family, which had taken a dangerous route towards attempting to solve their problem.

"Can't you… talk to Mycroft?" John tried.

The raw rage and terrifying flame of blue anger that erupted in Sherlock's angry glance silenced him utterly, and left him feeling very sheepish for quite some time.

Sherlock glared at him, but said nothing. John was right; Mycroft was the logical person to turn to. He had an enormous amount of influence in what was increasingly becoming a nightmarish government, heartlessly oppressing a minority and depriving a people of their birth-rights. Therefore he was the first person Sherlock _had_ turned to.

"Mycroft won't help." He said finally, bitterly. "They have him locked up in his gilded cage, and he's too happy to realize he's trapped."

Sherlock wove his fingers together and clasped his knuckles tightly. "Utterly, utterly happy. Utterly trapped."

John started violently. "Trapped, you say?"

"Utterly." Sherlock mused.

"Good, because if not, I'd say that looks suspiciously like him trying to get out of a car that just pulled up."

It was Sherlock's turn to jump.

"What!?" He exclaimed, flapping his wings furiously and managing to levitate himself a foot off of his stool. With practiced ease, he hovered over to the window and accidentally wrapped John in a shawl of his left wing.

"I'll be." He said, watching the slow, languid flapping of one wing as his brother attempted to shimmy awkwardly out of his car.

"He must be off his diet again." He deduced with quiet triumph. "He's having more trouble than usual fitting in the car, even with the 'special adjustments'. That and there's no longer any pressure to maintain an optimal flying weight."

"Is that what the umbrella was for?" John asked as Mycroft emerged, stretching his arms and back in one great grasping motion at the sky, his legs with two swift kicks and his wings with trembling exultation. The first thing John noticed was the absence of Mycroft's favorite accessory besides his assistant: His black umbrella. "Making a smooth landing?"

He could imagine the scene perfectly: Mycroft flying over the spot he wanted to land, straightening himself to a standing position, and as he plummeted to earth calmly unfolding his umbrella, grasping the crook of the handle and instantly arresting his descent: he would arrive in much the same fashion as Marry Poppins, only, probably with much worse news, and much less singing.

"I'm not sure what the umbrella was all about." Sherlock lied.

"Looks like he's coming up." John said.

"Looks like I'm going out." Sherlock replied. In a flash he raced through the flat until he reached the window at the other side. He easily pulled it open and put one leg on the sill leaning out into the ally of the building with a rush of barely hidden expectation.

"Don't!" John said grabbing his arm and pulling him back into the flat.

"Why not?" Sherlock snapped. He wanted so badly to fly out and let the naked sun warm his skin.

"Why!" John exclaimed incredulously. "Of all the places in the world to hide from your brother, what makes you think he won't find you in the _sky_? It's the one place he _can _catch you."

That gave Sherlock sufficient pause to step off the ledge. He scolded himself for not thinking of that himself.

"That and it's against the law…we were just talking about it! You know that!"

Sherlock muttered something in the way of an apology.

"Maybe he brings you good tidings?" John said half-sarcastically, half-excitedly brushing his fingers through his hair. "Good tidings and a difficult case?"

"Hah!" Sherlock quipped. "Whatever he brings, it's never good."

"Talking about me already?" Mycroft asked pushing the wood of the door to the flat and letting himself in. Fitting his large, cream colored wings through the door was a challenge, but at last he managed to stand, with more or less of a dominating demeanor inside the flat, eyeing the usual mess with the usual measured disapproval.

"Hello Mycroft." Sherlock said without any pleasure, much as one might address the aunt who smothers one with kisses, or the uncle that steals birthday money.

"Morning Sherlock, how are you?" Mycroft said smiling pleasantly. He turned his head a fraction of an inch and fixated his hawk-like eyes on John.

"Hello John, how's the new kettle?"

"What do you want?" Sherlock interrupted the empty niceties, ensuring John never got the chance to ask how Mycroft knew about the new kettle.

"Can't I just check in on my favorite brother when I happen to be in the neighborhood?" He said, still grinning, head oscillating slightly, like a parrot on a perch.

_He's your only brother, isn't he?_ Thought John.

"Must be important, otherwise you wouldn't bother schmoozing at us, like we're some half-rate politician, or unknowing ambassador." Sherlock said, sizing his brother up. Mycroft had developed a small pouch in his stomach, which he cleverly hid beneath his well-tailored jacket. He increasingly resembled the dodo bird, long extinct with a funny nose, stubby legs and a chubby, ill proportioned body. All he was missing was the stubby legs, although if he continued to develop his ill-proportioned body it soon wouldn't matter.

"It _is_ important." Mycroft admitted, still smiling, but with a little flair of insecurity behind his predator eyes.

"Ah, so I was right. I refuse." Sherlock said quickly, looking, for all purposes as though his intrigue was piqued, despite himself. John glanced at him in shock, until he saw the dim blue flame burning behind his formerly glazed eyes. Nothing to worry about, Sherlock was interested. That was all that mattered.

Mycroft sensed his brother's interest and preyed on it. "You won't once I tell you about it."

"Oh?" Sherlock challenged.

Mycroft's left eyebrow arched elegantly, and his wings folded into sharp arches much in the same fashion one might fold their hands atop their desk when they decided to talk about business.

"Yes." He said, allowing for a suspenseful pause.

"You know as well as I that the latest ordinance against avio-homnids was somewhat forced by political necessity."

Sherlock said nothing, but allowed his cold, hateful silence to speak volumes about _his_ opinion.

"Well, as far as opposition goes, support for an immediate reprieve of the bill is in the pipeline, supported by many Facebook groups, and other such nonsense." Mycroft paused again. John couldn't tell if Mycroft was artfully inserting pauses for dramatic effect, or if talking for any length of time exhausted him breathless.

"Although, in fact, there was never much doubt about the eventual unpopularity of such an action." Mycroft stretched his wings slightly, in emphasis. "'Save the Angels' has about as nice a ring to it as 'Save the Whales' and no one would stand for the oppression of such wondrously magical creatures, especially when one rising star turned into an international hero."

Here he gestured at Sherlock, who accepted the singular action as one might accept a kiss from the hated aunt that smothers, or an IOU from the thieving uncle.

"Get to the point." Sherlock warned.

Mycroft paused. This time, not so much for dramatic effect, but seemingly from… what was that flickering John saw behind his eyes…doubt? He couldn't be sure. Surely the incomprehensible expression spoke volumes to Sherlock, but Sherlock himself stayed as blank as stone throughout the entire affair.

Mycroft unbuttoned his coat and reached into a hidden pocket tailored to hold things invisible to the outside world. He pulled out a folded picture and hesitantly handed it to Sherlock.

"Officially I was never here by the way." He said mock-cheerfully as Sherlock opened each riveting fold with his slender fingers. "CCTV will show no images recorded, and seven of my workmates can account for my presence in my office at this time."

John watched the curiosity etch across Sherlock's face, and them get swept away by a quiet awe.

"What is it?" He asked, feeling lead-headed.

"That." Mycroft pointed to the photo, now caught in Sherlock's irrevocable iron grip. "Is the only picture of the only man who can… how do you say… grease the wheels for the reprieve of Icarus' Law. He's talking with the man who stands to gain the most from the continual upholding of the law. That was the last time he was seen: two days ago near Piccadilly Circus. His wife hasn't seen him since."

"When you say he _stands to gain the most_… what exactly do you mean?" Sherlock asked, still struck with a reverie of shock and doubt.

Mycroft smiled again, softly, yet firmly. He could not say.

Sherlock understood at once. "Fine." He relented. "I'll find him."

"Good." Mycroft nodded to them each in turn, and clapped his wings as he turned to leave. "Good Morning."

"Good Morning." John said confusedly.

Sherlock noiselessly sat himself on his stool. This; the most wonderful, amazing present had come from the most unlikely of places: Mycroft. A message from the future that change was in the air. It wasn't free of course, it came with the unspoken vow of future work for his brother, but it also came with the exhilarating possibility of being able to help free himself and his people, like a modern day Moses.

"Did Mycroft leave a name?" John asked.

"Written on the back." Sherlock said handing the photo off to John without looking at it. He was thinking glorious thoughts of pastoral beauties, observed from the heavens.

John scanned the image, a grainy CCTV photo taken in the dark corner of a dark alley at night. Even squinting, John could barely make out the image of two men walking through the chest-high shadows, at each other's arms and, apparently, chatting animatedly. One man was tall and lean, with a beakish nose and wispy white hair. He looked like an egret. The other man was shorter, with sleek black hair, and an elegant black suit. He looked like a penguin.

John flipped the paper over and read the names. Egret man's name was written directly on the back of his image, but the name of penguin man (presumably) was hunched down low in the corner, and written in a horribly quick scrawl.

Egret man's name turned out to be John Mann, while Penguin man took James Moriarty.

"Mo…ri…art..y." John sounded out the name, tripping on the tricky syllables.

"I've heard that name before." Sherlock said quietly.

John looked up from the picture expectantly. "Where?" He asked.

"Nowhere good." Sherlock replied enigmatically.

"Well." John said, wishing he had more to add, or perhaps a plan to be made.

"Do we…?" He was at a loss.

"Can we find this Moriarty and ask him a few questions?" the circuits connected in his brain suddenly, and he found himself quite pleased with the results.

"No." Sherlock said.

John looked at his friend in irritation, and then looked again in reverie. Sherlock had his head bowed, fingers steepled in the praying position and wings folded like a true angel.

John put the photo on his lap and glanced once out into the sun-soaked streets, but the image of his flat mate's coal-black trusses, ivory skin and silken wings were burned into his retinas. He imagined, not for the last time, about the first time Sherlock had flown for him. How impossible it had all seemed, that a man could defy gravity. How incredible it was that his flat mate could shine as brightly as the blistering sun boiling in the velvety folds of a parched sky. How impossibly perfect he had looked floating down on a breath of wind, taking the scent of the atmosphere down with each deft beating of his lovely appendages, white shirt billowing pristinely, torn from where he had tucked it into his pants, reflecting the glare of the sun in great spears of light and waving angelically like robes. How wonderfully inviting his outstretched arms had seemed.

Then, John Watson had thought to himself: "_Here is someone upon whom I can place my faith_."

"You'll do it, you know."

Sherlock looked up.

"You'll find him, and then you'll fly in daylight again." John said. It wasn't blind hope, nor was it in any way an opinion. It was a simple statement of his one true desire.

"If I go up again, I'll take you."

It was John's turn to arch his eyebrow.

"I can carry someone; I'm light enough, and you're light enough." Sherlock said tartly, as though he were the slightest bit insulted.

John smiled, thinking of London as seen from the air: a few unattractive rectangles and suffocating plumes of smog.

"I'd love to."


	2. Pillage the Nest

**Thanks to Arty Diane for suggesting I continue this story. In my usual fashion the first chapter will be the longest, the rest will be infuriatingly short. :)**

* * *

The administrative building for St. Bart's hospital was located in the heart of the city; a goodly distance away from St. Bart's itself. It took some finding to locate, but eventually it revealed itself to be an inconspicuously large and dull building squeezed in-between a similarly uninteresting law office and a coffee house with startling red bricks; a vibrant dwarf among giants.

John Watson craned his neck upwards and gaped at the incredible height of the massive gray monument to health sciences. The tip of the building disappeared into the clouds which hung out of the sky like a great fat belly, and occasionally spattered small, annoying driblets of rain down upon the faces unassuming Londoners, such as the unassuming Londoner who happened to be foolishly looking up when the cloud happened to drop its load. John blinked and sputtered as a slight rivulet of rain ran up his nose. He dropped his head and shook his face, sending the water on its way into his collar, and the rest of it he wiped off with his hand, which he wiped off on his pants.

Sherlock Holmes glanced once up and down the length of the building and sneered. The height was fine, and he wouldn't have minded getting to stretch his nervous, itchy wings, but the wet, pregnant clouds would get his coat damp. If his coat got damp, he would need to dry it before it began to smell like mildew, which would be a hassle.

Oh, and also, flying during daylight hours was still illegal. Which was a real pain since the person they had come to see was on the top floor, a two minute flight, or a fifteen minute queue by elevator.

He snarled briefly at John about the state of the weather and the world, and then angrily stalked into the building, ensuring anyone around knew solely by his body language he was far from pleased to be there. His wings entombed his head in a great downy tent, which kept his hair and shoulders perfectly dry as he crossed the street in great, grumpy strides. John scampered after.

Once inside Sherlock took great personal relish in shaking out his great feathery wings as a dog might, making them tremble marvelously quickly and vibrating the droplets to the surface, where they were shaken off the silken feathers with a few quick jerks, and splattered all over John and one unfortunate man in a black hat who happened to be walking in just after them, his umbrella already folded under his arm.

"Excuse me!" He said angrily, glaring from the winged man to John, as though he was unsure whether or not John was just an innocent bystander, or another victim. He finally gave John a look that said: _control your friend_, to which John shrugged, as if to say_: If only I could_.

The man made to storm away into the offices, but slipped on the slickened tile floors and staggered, devoid of his frustrated dignity, away. His shoes made faint squealing noises as he stepped.

The interior of the building was much, much cheerier than the exterior. It emitted a warm, cheery glow form the dull orange lanterns that seemed to be wielded into the wall and bounced merrily off of gilded fixtures. Lush, fertile plants sat contentedly in heavy clay pots and waved their leaves happily as people bustled by. In fact, the only thing that seemed less than hospitable was the people. Every person who passed through the room in the thirty seconds or so it took them to look around and dry off seemed haggard, half-starved, gaunt and most importantly, rushed. Their wan, pale faces seemed haunted, their footsteps stalked. It was as though the fear of death was baring down on their backs, and it was all they could manage to hold on to their leather bound portfolios and keep from breaking out into a dead run.

Only the receptionist seemed to be in tuned with the environment, so much so she seemed part of the fixtures. She seemed to glow just as brightly as the strange lights nestled in her shiny leather chair behind the great, towering stone wall which was her desk, twiddling absently with the petals of a silk flower that sat dully on her desk. She swiveled in her plush chair, talking on the phone animatedly with someone, smiling every few seconds as though the person on the other line could see her. She looked up, mouthed 'hold on' and stopped smiling.

"Sirs?" She waved at Sherlock and John frustrated "Could you please dry off before entering the lobby?"

"No need, all dry," Sherlock said with a small smile, carefully stepping over the sheen left by his puddle and flicking his wings pointedly, sending stray raindrops flying in almost every direction. John blinked away the liquid projectiles, which invariably landed almost entirely on him and followed his friend into the elevator, where he mashed the correct button quickly before anybody could join them.

"Why must you always do this?" John complained wiping his friend's cast-offs from his face with a great sweep of his hand.

"Apologies, I'll remember to warn you next time." Sherlock said, the corners of his lips still twitching upwards.

John smiled darkly. "No you won't."

Sherlock shrugged.


	3. Ascension

Elevator rides are notoriously awkward. They never start out that way, but in an extended ride the need for small talk to relieve the dull humming of the motor becomes crucial, and by the seventh floor John was considering breaking his friend's iron-clad concentration to relieve the monotony.

"Did something seem…off to you?" he asked quietly, which is the only way to talk in an elevator.

The hush after his words reminded him of attempting to hold a conversation in a church, always met with the same distracted silence that seemed full of unheard thoughts buzzing in the empty air.

"You mean how the secretary makes significantly more than most of the people who were in the foyer?"

"How on earth…?" John did not have to finish his thought out loud; Sherlock supplied the explanation immediately, as if on cue.

"Four people with skirts, two were made of cheap material, obviously thrift store, one looked like a hand-me-down that had been re-hemmed, with obvious moth eaten holes. The last one our secretary friend showed us when she stood up. Calvin Klein, new and expensive. She can't have worn it more than five times, or at the very least she can't have washed it more than five times.

"Four women in the foyer while we were in there briefly and two were fastidious about their appearance: not a single hair escaping from their tight buns, or a single speck of lint on their clothes. One uses an expensive brand of salon-product, one uses a generic brand; again the secretary comes out on top.

"And finally the paperweight on her desk, the one she so boldly uses on top of the newest best-selling romance novel, it is often sold in art galleries for upwards of fifty pounds. Admittedly that one could have been a gift, but I'm certain that if she had a spend-easy male companion he would not know enough to supply her with the fashion, nor beauty products she desires.

"I could go on about her lipstick, and especially that ghastly perfume bottle sitting on her desk, but I only highlighted the things you could have noticed," Sherlock shrugged easily, blooming under the new puzzle he'd been presented and the wondrous multiple pieces it had already proven to possess.

"So what does that mean?" John asked, absorbing the information dizzyingly, pushing his memory to recall any paperweight when it seemed consumed with the man in black's grizzled angry face sopping with water.

"Why would a secretary make more than people who clearly work longer, and harder than she does?" Sherlock arched his eyebrow, staring at John. It was his cue now; he was giving John a chance to pick up the pieces on his own, to make a deduction in proper Sherlock style. It was his moment; all he needed was a little nudge.

"Why would she make more than people who have more training?" Sherlock pressed.

John obliged, a sudden rush of insight flowing through him, flooding him with a euphoria called 'Eureka'.

"What does the secretary do other than just take calls for St. Bart's?" He asked.

"Exactly," Sherlock said proudly.

Now it was time for the stage cue, and the ruby elevator door took the hint and chimed melodiously, indicating their arrival.


	4. Spotting the Prey

The doors swung open, like the curtain before a play and the performance began.

People swung in and out of offices carrying bundles of papers, boxes of papers and occasionally small computers. Four rows of desks stood at formidable attention, placidly standing up to the ebb and flow of people chattering, running and flinging papers from one station to the next. At each desk someone typed furiously away at the old, bulky computers that had been donated to the school towards the dawn of the computer age and never upgraded. The poor typists had to shovel aside the mountains of paper that continuously buried the papers they were working on.

In all, the administrations building of St. Bart's looked more like a stock exchange than any part of a hospital.

In the center of the disaster, a man bounced from desk to desk, dancing his way past people rushing to get from point A to point B, occasionally taking someone by the arm and whispering commands in their ear and then parting in a hurry.

He floated towards the front of the desks and paused, noticing Sherlock and John for the first time, and He stopped drifting and stood, rooted in place. John could see his interest in the rest of his work affairs dissolve before his very eyes, and he stood calm in the face of the massive storm of paper work.

He appeared to have something important to say, perhaps something sinister, or helpful, or something to make him seem more important and omniscient to their investigation. But he cleared his throat, took a look around and said plainly "Can I help you?"

Sherlock stared at him; blatantly stared at him.

The telephone behind him rang, and the man turned on his heels and leapt to answer it.

"Hello? Yes, yes, you have my blessing. No, Andre, And-rey; I don't know how many times I have to school you in French before you get the accent right. Alright, ciao." He hung up.

He looked up and found Sherlock wading through the chaos at him, and instantly as he passed the disaster quelled. People looked up to the man dressed in black with the lustrous wings which still glittered with beads of rain and stopped moving, stopped working, and stopped breathing with awe. It was like the parting of the red sea: people clutched their papers against their breasts like the white foam and the shuffling became the roar of an ocean wave.

One brave woman whispered "Isn't that the _Winglock Wonder?_" but her voice was lost in the utter stillness of the room. Sherlock demanded tribute, demanded reverie and silence was his constant companion. All eyes were magnetically pulled to the most powerful object in the room, his domineering face perched majestically on the strong regal shoulders quivering with barely masked potential for flight and ascension.

He gazed down upon the man, who had also been struck by something of awe, and asked: "Might there be somewhere we can talk in private?"

Reality regained its hold on the floor; people crept nimbly along behind and in front of him and business continued, at a much slower, reverential pace and with a quiet, worshipful hush.

John toyed with his thumb behind his back nervously. He always felt uncomfortable whenever Sherlock quieted a room, yet he could never tell just how it was done.

The man sputtered, "Certainly, my office is at the corner." And he led Sherlock with unsteady legs through the crowd of slow moving workers.


	5. Snake in the Nest

The small, cozy office was the perfect scene for a brief interchange of dialogue, whether it was a consultation on the newest OS system, or a private chat between boss and employee. The man led Sherlock into the room, ignoring John who dutifully followed after them. In a flash, with all the practiced ease of someone who had naturally ascended to the height of power, the man swooped around his desk, placing a barrier between the detectives and himself.

"Please, have a seat," he said with a sweep of his arm. John grabbed a soft red chair, but upon noticing how immobile Sherlock was he stood rigidly still, waiting for a clue on how to act.

The man faltered momentarily, his eyes narrowed and darkly glittered, seeming almost reptilian. The instant John noticed it, the façade melted away, and a sunny smile bloomed across the pale, tired face.

"I'm sorry you had to see that mess. We're transferring files from paper onto the new system, and, well, let's just say all of the bugs haven't been ironed out yet. It's been a bit of a catastrophe." He giggled, shrugging in a friendly what-can-you-do way that made it seem as though he were meeting with a pair of friends rather than a cold detective and his soaked accomplice.

Sherlock continued his glaring, absorbing the information without responding. He seemed as silent and immobile as a hawk upon a perch, spotting a mouse in a field and placidly judging distances before its flight, descent, and lightning fast attack.

The man smiled oddly and held out his hand across the desk for a shake, "Jim Moriarty. Hi!"

The way Jim sang his greeting struck John as odd, but the way Sherlock stared at the outstretched limb, narrowing his glare suspiciously and remaining frozen in place was downright weird.

For a moment, Jim let his arm hang in the empty air. He seemed to be demanding the grip of his extended limb, obstinately refusing Sherlock's refusal. Again, John noted a dangerous glare in the coal black eyes. He'd seen the same sort of dangerous, poisonous malice when, on a windless, thoughtless night in Afghanistan he'd taken a tall stick and, on a dare, started a long teasing dance with one of the sand snakes that plagued the desert. The look in the eyes of that snake, which, on reflection, could have killed him in under thirty seconds if it so chose, was eerily identical to the daring, burning darkness that sparkled in the eyes of the St Bart's office worker as he challenged Sherlock to that uncomfortable game of frozen chicken, daring him to give up and accept the awkwardness of the situation and grip the hand he unaffectedly scorned.

Finally, after half a minute the arm sank without being shaken. Jim's eyes made a route for the floor shamefully as he silently accepted defeat, only to bounce back towards the face of his two guests jovially without any sign of the storm that had taken them and John was left wondering if he'd been imagining the danger, imagining the snake-like predatory gaze in the eyes of the starch-suited, innocent faced office worker

"So, um…" Jim tried to start a normal conversation again, but his light, lilting voice was struck dead in an instant with Sherlock's low and frightening murmur.

"Wrong…"

"Excuse me?" Jim continued to smile, but John caught his first real glimpse of something cold machinating in his expression, something dark around his eyes that seemed to swallow the emotion without a trace, like a black hole. This time it didn't fade, only softened after a moment of reflection.

"You're wrong." Sherlock said in a stronger tone.

It was Jim's turn to stare. John waited patiently for Sherlock to explain his inexplicable accusation, confidant that it would amount to something.

"I, um… well, I haven't said anything yet?" Jim smiled without any of his cheerfulness, his words expressing an insecurity that did not reach his face.

"Mycroft said you were the one with 'the most to gain' from the Icarus law, he must have seen through you in an instant." Sherlock continued with his thoughts uninterrupted, unsympathetic to the two people trying to trace a pattern in the conversation.

"Who?" Jim said in a heavy, leaden tone; still feigning innocence.

"It was obvious, should be obvious. I've been blind." Sherlock growled, laying his palm against his forehead.

"Would you like to explain to me what you want from me and then leave?" Jim asked impatiently, a bead of sweat working its way into his eyebrow.

In a flash, Sherlock was back. He was speaking straight to Jim, penetrating him with his glare, probing with his words, shooting straight to the heart of the unnerved man.

"I want you to return John Mann to his family and I want you to do it within 36 hours," Sherlock said addressing the large, luminous clock that hung over the office like a large moon. "If you fail to do so, I cannot guarantee your clever operations will continue unnoticed."

The words hit the man in the face like a slap of wet leather. Instantly the cheerful, hardworking Jim washed away and something much more calculating took his place. The shy smile vanished and in its place a slight, nervous grin pulled at the corners of his face. He eyed the detective from within two pools of oil, he rolled his head in a slightly reptilian fashion, oscillating to and fro, gathering the whole man in at a glance.

"Oh?" was all he had to say as he assessed the threat that had, so boldly, charged into his nest.

John shivered. He was soaking wet and standing just beneath the silver AC vent, but he could have sworn that the spasm had come the instant Jim's eyes had roved over him.


	6. The Magpie's Lair

Jim's mouth worked absently, forming words and then discarding them in favor of other words which he would practice silently, testing them on his lips before withdrawing into himself quietly; A snake coiling.

He glared at Sherlock for a moment, rueful, hateful but most of all impressed. John stared at the man, who moments before had been so elegant and gracious, now verging on smiling eerily. He quietly seethed, the lightning in his eyes crashing momentously and the corners of his lips twitched in anger, or pleasure.

"Pray tell: what clever operations are those?" He asked humorously in a silken purr, "My dear,"

He leaned on the desk and crossed his legs, folding his hands on his lap classily. The overworked office worker had melted away and been replaced with something foreign and sinister.

Sherlock folded his wings together, as he always did while he was deducing, much in the same manner he would steeple his fingers.

"The secretary takes your calls, you pay her from your own reservoir, your own well of ill-gotten gains, and she screens and transfers all your 'business' to you, sending Bart's real calls to some other person to bother with."

The humor was gone, Jim glanced at the door and suddenly John knew how he could be of help. He subtly shifted his weight on his feet until he effectively blocked the exit.

Sherlock lifted his arms up in an exulted salute, gesturing to the entire building at once. He'd seen Jim's insecurity and had feasted on it, it was the only proof he was right and he relished every moment, every discomforted gesture that involuntarily rippled through Jim's face.

"Bart's is a clever cover, clever, clever," Sherlock mused, tasting the excitement as he realized fully what an extraordinary case he had lit upon. "You are very clever, running so many crimes at once."

John glanced at Sherlock in surprise, wondering what crimes and how he could have known. Jim looked a bit relieved.

"It baffled me, it truly did," Sherlock said, his wings uncurling eagerly, making him seem much larger and more frightening, like the hawk before it strikes. "When all the clues to a particularly vicious double homicide pointed to a woman, mother of three who worked as a Nurse at St. Bart's. I was stunned, but it was not as unbelievable as the bank robbers who channeled their fortunes to Swiss banks via the hospital's bank account."

He laughed, the sudden rush of understanding coursing through his veins, making his heart throb with intensity. All the pieces of puzzles that had baffled him for so many sleepless nights were collecting around the man who sat, hands folded, in front of him.

"Is that where all of this leads? To you?" He accused, his voice full of scornful disbelief. "You use St Bart's as a cover for a vast crime ring, a veritable Magpie's nest of debauchery; you tangle your plots through the files and lives of thousands of doctors and patients while you sit, as fat as a spider in the center, manipulating your web of blood."

The anger and cold hate that bled into Sherlock's scorn bit at John, who wasn't even the focus of it. Jim sat, still as marble, and blankly accepted each accusation emotionlessly.

Finally, the statue breathed.

"It's about time you noticed," he teased, "I've had my eye on you for quite some time. It's a bit insulting that it took this long for you to darken my doorframe."

"I don't want to waste your time," Sherlock growled, "I'm sure that we'll meet again once I can gather a bit of evidence to impale you with. Today I only want John Mann."

Jim grimaced, seeming absurdly comical, like a clown with sticking plaster on its face distorting each expression in a grotesque mask.

"Who?" Jim piped, rolling his head on his shoulders like a puppet whose neck-joint has come unscrewed.

Sherlock licked his lips angrily. His patience had run its course.

"You know well who," he said in his low, frightening cougar growl. "John Mann,"

"What makes you think I know him?" Jim mocked, pretending to scrutinize his fingernails innocently.

* * *

**What makes us thing you know him? You're acting guilty doofus.**


	7. The Hornet's Nest

**Big long deduction time! I had to think, what would make Moriarty angry? What would make him loose his slightly psychopathic cool. The answer was the same for him as it was for me: siblings.**

* * *

Sherlock leaned back on his heels, letting his wings billow out to rebalance his body. He did not miss the slight flaring of Jim's nostril at this seemingly small action.

"Your expensive clothing and obsessive primping says either gay or insecure. The product in your hair and the traces of cream around the frown lines suggests a level of personal grooming which would indicate either you worked in a position of high scrutiny, such as a modeling, (clearly a no) or you _felt_ as though you were scrutinized, so you wanted to appear as perfect as possible visibly.

"Why such a focus on your visible aspects? Surely the clear psychological and emotional problems would be a better aspect to focus on," Jim opened his mouth to squeeze a word in edgewise, but Sherlock barreled on full speed, a train engine that would not, could not be stopped.

"No, there is something wrong with your outside, something that you feel is obvious to the rest of the population. Something you feel is so clear, everyone who doesn't notice is an idiot. The extra bone in your shoulders perhaps,"

Jim made a small, frustrated noise. His venomous gaze boiled and distilled into a poison, which he shot at Sherlock, all the while rolling his shoulders in a way which resembled a cobra's dance.

"It's there in the way you hold yourself, in the way you leaned over your desk and extended your arm for a shake. The last joint bone is still there, impeding your muscle performance, probably sticking out quite noticeably, which would explain the extra padding in the shoulders of that suit, that suit which is far too expensive for a simple IT position at a small hospital. That suit which is clearly a compensation for your paralyzing fear that someone will notice the slight crippling of your fine motor functions."

Jim made a sour, forced smile, "So I had surgery? Does that make me guilty?"

"No, but it certainly makes you damaged. I noticed a certain lacking of avian bipeds on your floor. Presumably you refuse to hire them, or you drive them off using your various legitimate or _illegitimate_ methods.

"Now I had to ask myself: why would someone who's had his wings removed feel so prejudiced against avio-homnids? Why discriminate against them as a species? Jealousy, surely. But in order to go out of your way to ruin not only every winged person you meet, but every winged person in England? To remove John Mann, the one man who could potentially lift the restrictions of flight for all of England? That is a deeper, much more deranged sort of jealousy. That is _bitterness_."

Jim rolled his eyes derisively.

"So, I postulate a sibling rivalry," Jim's eyes froze on the ceiling and his face froze in a mocking half-smile. Slowly his face melted into a flat, dull expression. His eyes sank and floated down to focus on Sherlock, frozen in a numb weariness, a fearful expectation.

"You lost your wings, but your sibling got to keep them. Someone who shares more than one facet of your identity, someone who shares your very space, your very blood. Probably a brother, probably younger; it would have to be to irk you to the degree that you loathed not only him, but his whole species. Your whole species. I can only imagine how painful it must have been to be his grounded shadow."

Sherlock paused and allowed the silence to grind in the salt of his, apparently correct deductions.

"A childhood spent in the shade of his wings. As soon as you knew what it was to be, you knew what it was to be overlooked, discarded," Sherlock eased forward, his words cutting like a knife, flicking blood in the stoic, reptilian mask Jim had placed over his own face, "Ignored,"

A tremor rippled through Jim's face and subtly vanished.

"I know you know John Mann because you are a deranged, wing hating, power hungry man. You'll have followed the entire legal process regarding the Icarus law, you'll have used your organization to endorse those politicians who approved and threaten those that didn't. Now that your whole animosity-soaked plan for revenge on people that have a gift is dependent on one man, you'll stop at nothing to remove him, even if bribery and threats didn't work."

Jim remained immobile through the duration of this climax. When Sherlock finished he pointed once, blankly to the door and said in a cold, dead tone: "Get out,"

"I want John Mann," Sherlock repeated.

Something in Jim's cool, unaffected demeanor snapped, his face contorted with raw rage, twisting violently and he threw himself over his desk creating a human bulldozer of fury, sweeping pens, papers and the computer off the desk with his arms in a fierce avalanche with a mighty, feral roar.

"Get out!" he screamed, totally different from the light, lilting, laughing voice he'd been using previously.

John did not need to be told twice. While the echo still bounded off the walls eerily he opened the door and Sherlock, beating his wings triumphantly tore through the open passage, avoiding the ceramic pencil holder Jim pitched at them in a rage, all the while shrieking "Out!"

Sherlock pulled the door shut and made sure that Jim could see the bristling of his feathers, showing off the pearly wings with a few indignant flaps. The office was once again stunned into silence and scurried away from the two detectives as they cut through the armada of desks and escaped to the elevator. Sherlock held his wings carefully aloft to avoid accidentally bumping them into the towers of papers that were stacked precariously along the edge of each desk.

John stepped inside and mashed the 'down' button a few more times than was necessary. Sherlock folded his wings tightly and calmly waited for the doors to shut before he leapt into the air, fists clenched in triumph.

"Brilliant!" He cried, "Ahh, yes! Beautiful case, beautiful case!"

John stared at him incredulously. "Would you like to tell me what that was all about?"

"James Moriarty, IT at St. Bart's, moonlights as a criminal mastermind," Sherlock sighed happily, "He also, apparently, is not a fan of winged people and will go out of his way to murder their chances of political equality by removing their best supporters." Sherlock chuckled darkly, "I figured he'd be difficult to anger. Pity. Family has a way of getting under your skin. Like a tic, really,"

"When you say criminal mastermind, you don't mean like Voldemort or any bloke in the movies now, do you?"

"One of the villains Bond has to face would probably be a better match," Sherlock said, happy that for once he could contribute to an exchange of pop culture that did not involve murder.

"A criminal in the computer age, with connections to factions all over the world. The ability to share plots, events, plans and even advice for cleaning up afterwards." Sherlock shook his head, smiling.

"_This_ website has instructions for making bombs, this one has instructions for chloroform and _yet_ _another_ is being made about how to clean blood stains and fool a UV light," he clasped his hands together and rubbed them eagerly. "And all of it is accessible through that device in your pocket. It's the future John. I, for one, am glad someone thought of it before I did. Genius!"

John shrugged, "So he's making sure that John Mann can't reprieve the Icarus law, just to spite his younger brother?"

"He must've taken a page out of Mycroft's book," Sherlock quipped, "No, not only his younger brother, though that _is_ at the heart of his fixation; he wants to ruin the lives of everyone who has the gift that he was denied."

Sherlock's lips twisted, as though he'd suddenly smelled something vile. He flared his wings suddenly, as though he was prepared to take flight, but pensively let them fall into tight arches again.

"That's his idea of fairness, John."

"Fairness would be telling Scotland Yard all you know about him,"

Sherlock clapped, and the deafening sound made John jump. "He's too good for that John, he hasn't left me anything but the slightest hints. All that time in the office I was waiting for him to snap at me and say 'Prove it'. I haven't any real evidence yet, but I'm certain some will be forth coming. We've just kicked the hornet's nest, surely something will come out of it,"

As the elevator doors swung open and the pair walked past the secretary Sherlock turned and pointed at her, wings flapping pointedly.

"You are a terrible human being."

She had a phone cradled in her shoulder and was standing with one fist balled on her hip, looking as though she'd heard he was coming and had been told of his attitude problem.

"He wanted me to give you this," She said as Sherlock turned to leave, holding a small square of paper to him.

He snatched it, looked at it and laughed. His flapping wings seemed to be echoing his derisive laughter "Yours?"

She smiled, shook her head and saucily returned "Have a nice day,"

On the streets the rain had passed, the sunlight glistened on the sidewalk and John could smell the seductive wafting scent of coffee from the small red shop. He unzipped his jacket and let the heat soak into his skin, feeling for all the world as though he'd just emerged from a crypt.

"What's that?" he asked as Sherlock appeared beside him, scanning a piece of paper with his eagle eyes.

"The secretary gave me his number," Sherlock said, crumbling the paper and shoving it into his pocket.

He strode out into the street quickly, his wings billowing out to the length of a car, and for a brief, fearful moment John was afraid he would suddenly take flight, just to enjoy the sun, or maybe to spite the villain in the office they had just humiliated.

Instead Sherlock raised his arm, turned to oncoming traffic and shouted for a cab.

* * *

**Sherlock has only deduced Jim once, when he was playing gay. I decided it was time to see what Sherlock could do to the real Moriarty.**


	8. A Stone Pigeon

Sherlock's sulks were legendary. Pent up energy from his prolonged grounding, plus the inevitable wait for Moriarty's contact and the recovery of John Mann were beginning to take their toll on the benevolence of the angelic man. He hadn't moved from his stool except to hurl an insult at the motherly cooing of Mrs. Hudson who drifted through the flat lovingly pecking at the garbage that saturated their floor. She had run out, her slate-gray wings fluttering in distress leaving a trail of old newspapers she had picked up all the way down the stairs.

"Go and apologize to her right now!" John had futilely commanded, using his most officious captain's voice in hopes it would do some good.

Sherlock had shot him a fierce glare in evident disgust and had pulled his knees up to his nose and had wrapped his sinewy arms around his thin legs. There he sat, perched on his stool like some odd species of bird, completely immobile for three hours.

John ambled around the flat absently, sometimes foraging for a snack, sometimes sitting in the chair opposite Sherlock typing up cases for his blog. He couldn't tell if Sherlock was truly comfortable, all hunched up and huddled over like an oversized child, or merely too stubborn to let John see him move.

Through the window John watched the light grow dimmer and dimmer. He peeked over the top of his computer and saw the building opposite theirs grow dark, as though the light were bleeding out of a photograph. Night fell suddenly, leaving John inexplicably glancing out the window at nothing.

"Nervous?" Sherlock crooned, remaining completely still except for the subtle motion of his mouth, elegantly forming the words without a single wasted movement, without a single batted eyelash or twitching feather.

"What? No. Why?" John shot back suddenly.

"You keep glancing around at the exits. Windows, doors… he's frightened you, hasn't he?" he said with a detached air.

John chewed a bit on his cheek before answering. "No…I'm just being extra cautious."

Sherlock finally broke his mask and smiled haughtily at John, "Extra precaution is a sign of fear. If all I've told has compromised your nerve in anyway…"

"No," John knew bragging when he heard it, and he was not going to let Sherlock's lofty pride say a damn thing about his _nerve_. "Geez, Sherlock. This guy blows up entire buildings just to kill one man. _Of course_ one of us has to be thinking about how he's going to retaliate."

Sherlock shrugged.

"He hires murderers for a living, and you walked right up to him and essentially spat in his eye,"

"I did no such thing. There was no spitting of any kind," he said urbanely.

John paused and stared angrily at Sherlock, who refused to make direct eye contact.

"It's an expression," John growled. "You walked up to a man who has ice in his blood and made him completely loose himself with anger in the way that only you could."

"He has to feel some pressure if we're going to convince him to give up Mann unharmed," Sherlock said. "Now his focus isn't on Mann, it's on me."

"Joy," John groaned, "Isn't there any other way to find him? Searching bank records?"

"We could," Sherlock allowed, "I could call Mycroft and ask for a favor,"

John looked at Sherlock. Sherlock stared back blankly.

"That's never going to happen, is it?"

"No, not unless I'm dead or dying,"

John threw up his hands in exasperation, a well-practiced response to the frustrating eccentricities Sherlock occasionally tossed his way.

"I'd like to remind you that a man could be dying!" John raged, "Do you care about him at all?"

Sherlock twisted his head in a way that oddly resembled Mycroft's parrot swivel. "I care that he could lift the ban on flying."

Sherlock's curious gaze and his detached words suddenly hit John like a cold splash of water.

"But you don't care if he's…in pain? Afraid?"

Sherlock looked at John obliquely, "Would that help me find him any quicker? Convince Moriarty to let him go any faster?"

John shook his head quietly.

"Then no," he curtly finished as his phone chimed once. He deftly fished it out of his pocket without breaking his concentration on John, whose face had darkened noticibly.

"Does that surprise you?" he asked blankly, almost innocently.

John bit his lip, being completely honest, "No," he murmured.

Sherlock started to smile, but somewhere along the way it ended up turning into a painful-looking grimace. "But I disappoint you?"

John nodded, "Good, very good. Great _deduction_," he sarcastically stabbed.

Sherlock settled back in his stool stiffly, uncurling his legs and unfurling his wings. For a while, John had forgotten his wings were attached to him, they hadn't moved in so long they seemed a separate part of him. He did not miss how Sherlock's slate gray eyes seemed glued to the floor, unable to lift themselves to face his presence.

John swallowed thickly. The way Sherlock stared at the floor blankly, his face an impassive mask of stone unsettled him. The unnatural way he moved, as though his body wanted to flow in one unified unit and his joints were somehow in the way frightened him, made him want to run and hide someplace. The glaciers in the way he spoke of another human being reminded John all too well of the man they had left fuming in the offices of St. Bart's.

Sherlock murmured something.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said don't _make_ people into heroes, John." He snapped bitterly, wrapping his wings around his shoulders like a pearly shroud. "Heroes don't exist, and even if they did, _I wouldn't be one of them._"

He started at his feathered mate, all bundled up in his impenetrable wall of white down, wearing a fierce, defensive mask over his real face.

John, staring at the obstinate man who could so blithely discard the perils of another human being, began to doubt the humanity of his friend. The frigid demeanor seemed sincere. Perhaps he'd been deluded into thinking he'd seen change, seen a softness in the way he'd interacted with other people.

Perhaps it was John, not Sherlock who'd changed, becoming more accustomed to the eccentricities of his feathered friend as time passed, letting his own humanity seep away and his compassion become hard and cynical

"Right then," John nodded and stood up, heading for the door of the flat.

Sherlock followed him with his eyes. When he reached the door, John heard a cry that seemed almost pitiful in its simplicity.

"Where're you going?"

John sucked in a breath of damp musk that seemed fuel his scathing rage.

"Out. I need some air," he barked softly, trying with all of his patience not to let his voice betray any of the anger or the fear he felt churning in his chest.

He closed the door briskly and lightly drummed down the stairs. Sherlock listened for the quiet snap of the front door shutting before he silently lifted his phone up to read the damning message again.

Unknown:

**Mann is dead.**


	9. Birds of a Feather

**I understand that some of you were upset with the last cliffhanger. I'll try not to torment my loyal readers like that anymore.**

* * *

Sherlock gazed at the door for a moment, wishing John could somehow emerge into the room and express the emotions that were lost on him somehow. He felt bitterness at the loss, certainly. But he had never _known_ John Mann as a man, he'd known him only as a politician who could have set him free, someone who could have granted him a wish, settled a desire. One does not feel sympathy for a genie locked in a lamp, one feels upset at a beloved friend or family member. Mann was neither of those.

In one sense he was a brother, a fellow human being who empathized with the perils of winged people in England, but that was a mite too poetic a sentiment for Sherlock to ever truly embrace. John, maybe.

He dug the ball of paper out of his coat and tenderly smoothed it out, revealing the blocky numbers inside.

Sherlock:

**The pool. Midnight.**

* * *

_I Lied._


	10. A Short Flight

In the shadows of London Sherlock skulked from streetlamp to streetlamp, hurtling through the curtains of darkness. In the swirling froth of his mind, the shadows became poisonous. Each darkened corner held some new terror, some new adversary waiting to surprise him, assault him, or kill him.

He was the only man Jim Moriarty had ever confessed to. He knew that when Jim said Mann was dead, his word was as good as a body. Now Sherlock was the only man in possession of compromising knowledge about the supposed Napoleon of Crime. He was a liability, a potential risk. More so than even when he was emptily hypothesizing about his criminal empire.

Which certainly did not bode well for him alone on a deserted street at night.

As he jumped from light to light, carefully avoiding alleyways, various quiet shortcuts and blank spaces between CCTV cameras, it struck Sherlock that he was a dead man.

There was no escaping the influence of Jim if his hypothesis were correct. He was too dangerous to let live. A detective who frequently works with Scotland Yard with connections in government could only be a cancerous tumor once latched onto the scent of a massive criminal organization.

Why then, as he approached closer and closer to his destination, why wasn't he already flailing on the sidewalk with a bullet snaking through his heart? Was there actually going to be a confrontation? Would they really let him meet with Moriarty again?

He became paranoid about possible followers as he passed a small spy-store, complete with blinking red lights and small, nearly invisible cameras capturing his image as he blithely crossed their path. Who was to say that Moriarty hadn't used his influence to manipulate one of those same cameras for his own private surveillance? Surely it would be easy for him to hack into the closed circuit system of the store. After all he'd managed to completely twist the secure hospital system around his finger without detection. He checked behind him mutely, still observing the same clear absence of people that had been so unnerving earlier. The street he was on was entirely devoid of life.

He decided to take a small chance and indulge himself in hopping over to the next street. He looked left and right. No one was around.

He began beating his wings: up, and then down with a furious power, displacing as much wind as possible with heavy, purposeful strokes. He felt his heart start to pump furiously, the exhilarating response to prolonged exercise. He slowly sped up his flapping to keep in time with his heart, he knew that was the key to ascension.

And then, when he deemed the push of the wind to be strong enough to hold him off the ground, Sherlock leapt into the air, pulling his legs up beneath him and gliding momentarily on the wind before paddling his way up on the London breeze, his massive wings capturing and utilizing the gentle draft which wafted vaguely through the city, propelling him higher and higher into the twinkling, hazy sky.

His wings became a blur. Sweat collected on his forehead and he panted furiously to keep up with the new demand for oxygen. If he couldn't increase the power, he wouldn't be able to lift himself over the small building that separated the street he'd been on from the one he needed to go to. He pushed himself a bit harder, giving the extra effort needed to carefully maneuver up and over the roof. His legs hung lazily for a moment before adroitly beginning their job as rudder, steering his body in much the same way a bird uses its tail to control its gliding.

His wings arched into two white parachutes. They were no longer needed to soar up and above; now they merely helped him gently float back to earth, and hopefully not attract the attention of any flying scouts from Scotland Yard.

The curious sensation of catching and holding a draft of air under his delicate feathers tickled Sherlock to smiling. The wind melted off of his downy feathers and left his aching, excited wings feeling more whole, more together than they had felt in several weeks.

He drifted lazily down and landed hard on his feet. He shook off the shock and walked blithely away, projecting as calm and unassuming a demeanor he could manage while trying to hide the exhilarated smile that tugged at his lips.

God, flying was such a rush!

The building was in sight. It was not another hundred meters to the front door. At every step he expected a hand at his throat, or to hear the familiar pop of a firearm being shot at long range.

At every step nothing came. The street was crossed without a single car careening upon him at a maddening speed, trying to flatten him, or indeed any car at all. The streets were still, silent and dead. Sherlock Holmes felt he had passed over into a dead world.

He pushed on the handle of the door. It swung open effortlessly, as though to usher him onward into the blackness. He paused, giving Jim one last chance to strike him down. Nothing came. He flapped his great wings determinedly, blowing his hair away from his face in a frigid gust of air and sped through the door, letting it slam shut in his wake.

* * *

**Why did it take me so long to update this? I'll tell you: I've written most of the rest of the confrontation and it is LONG! **

**Here's a hint to the rest of this confrontation: I'm sitting on my bed with an open copy of ****_The Complete Works of Shakespeare_****,****_ The Complete One Volume WWII guide_****, and ****_Beowulf_****. If that doesn't make everything crystal clear, I can't help you.**


	11. Laughing Kookaburra

**As a thank you for being patient, EXTRA LONG CHAPTER FOR ALL!**

* * *

For a moment he was lost in the blackness. The tingling of the cold air on his face lasted for a moment, then slowly faded away, leaving him numb. He squinted, trying to pierce the darkness with his eagle eyes. He spun, wrapping the black curtains around him and losing his heading in the dark. He turned his head towards a small glimmer that he saw out of the corner of his eye. A long, lolling tongue of blue fire rolled across the floor, not one meter away from where he stood.

He reached out blindly and his fingers wrapped around another door handle, this one locked. He pushed it and it jammed, clicking stubbornly. If the door hadn't been open, that would have been the end of Sherlock's night.

But the door _was_ open, it was propped open with a rolled up newspaper. Jim had known all along which entrance Sherlock would use and had kept it open for him. Sherlock grimaced at the merest notion that he could be, in any way, predictable.

The pool had a miraculous quality at night. The calm, lapping waters shot blue waves of light at the walls and flickered brightly in one's eyes. The curtains made great billowy shadows across the floors and creeping up the ancient, cracked stone walls. If Sherlock hadn't seen the pool during the day, he could almost have imagined he had stumbled upon some ancient bathhouse, some cold crypt for the faded cloth that lined the walls and as a cemetery for the strange signs adorning the walls, complete with macabre hieroglyphs portraying people diving in shallow water and breaking their necks.

All at once the room seemed too dark, filled with hiding places for monsters and skeletons to lie in wait, and too bright, making him stand out as though under a stark spotlight.

He felt horribly exposed, especially when he peered up to the pitch black ceiling that seemed to be walling him in, looming over the eerie space like a large hand that would suddenly drop, crushing him flat.

There was plenty of room for flight, in case a swift escape became necessary, but sadly limited places to fly _to_.

He supposed if all else failed he could simply flit to the other end of the pool and try to run to the clearly marked exit under the flaming sign that burned like a hot brand, but that was only if he felt it was necessary. With a bit of luck and a lot of skill he may be able to trick Moriarty into forfeiting some sort of clue; just a little unconscious hint of his plans, or indicator of his guilt that would make it that much easier to outsmart and out maneuvered him in the dangerous chess game he was playing with English laws.

Sherlock's footsteps echoed around dismally, then, as if finding nothing better to do they shot back at him and reverberated in the air around him, hovering infuriatingly where he most desired peace.

He steered himself quietly along the edge of the pool. He'd found long ago that if he extended his wings, he would extend his center of balance, much in the same way a circus acrobat uses a long pole to assist their walk across a tightrope. Now he flared his wings, still quivering excitedly with a thirst for more air, and walked along the edge of the pool. Part of his black shoes jutted over the edge of the water. One false step and he would fall in, there was no way he could flap fast enough to save himself in time. What an embarrassing meeting that would be, him soaking wet, shivering like a drenched rat. Moriarty would be delighted.

Still, he stepped slowly with infinite care. His footfalls were as cautious as a tightrope walker's. He hovered on the precipice, exquisitely nervous and incredibly aware of gravity's effects on his grounded form.

The focus he expended on his fear of falling was purposely wasted. He had to distract himself from thinking about that serpentine sneer, the stone-cold staring black eyes and the eternally rolling shoulders, lolling neck, bobbing head as supple and flexible as a reptile's. He couldn't linger on such utter trivialities like the sense that he'd met with a tormented soul, unable to find a moment of peace due to the constant flexing and stretching of his pained shoulders, the need to somehow relieve the annoying sense of carrying a superfluous bone as a constant poke in the back, coupled with the hideous scarring that would have made the already dreaded gym-class showering an unbearable embarrassment: a virtual target primed for people like the young Carl Powers to take their best shots at, and unleash all the hidden anxieties a young disfigured boy already knew and feared.

Only about half the pool was left for him to walk. Where was Moriarty?

He reached the end of the pool without slipping and cautiously turned to start another walk along the short side when he heard a door open noisily, and slowly groan shut. The alarming bang when the door latched itself shut made him flinch, but affected his balancing act not one bit.

"Evening," Sherlock said unaffectedly as the 'office worker' emerged from the hallway beneath the exit sign, clad in a (new, very expensive) black suit. Sherlock smiled inwardly, realizing that insecurity had only gripped the man tighter since they'd last met.

Good, a psychological advantage.

Jim looked him over once and sneered inwardly once he realized what he'd been doing. He was not impressed, only a bit jealous, truth be told.

His hands were lost within his spacious suit pockets. Sherlock analyzed him briefly for a gun, but, not finding one he continued his walk unaffectedly.

"Nice touch this," Jim said suddenly, gazing over the entire pool minus the place where Sherlock was quietly stalking. "The pool…where little Carl died."

Sherlock nodded.

"Congratulations are in order. You stopped him. Now you've stopped Mann too." He murmured quietly, as though he were merely making an observation, as opposed to lobbing an accusation. He passed Jim slowly. He half expected the man to rush at him and attempt to push him into the pool, but no attempt came. He passed in safety.

Jim laughed, rubbing his nose modestly, "I stopped his heart,"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. The joke was in every way a stunning example of terrible taste and atrocious timing. And John said _he_ was 'not good'.

Jim sighed in an oh-well-let's-get-down-to-business type fashion.

"How long have you known?"

"About what? Carl Powers, John Mann or your criminal empire?"

"Ehh," Jim rocked on his feet, grinning. He seemed impossibly cheerful out of the blue. His light, laughing tone was ruining Sherlock's well developed sense of suspense and killing his ominous mood. It was also making him the slightest bit nervous. "Let's start with little Carl and work our way out, shall we?"

Sherlock reached the end of the pool. He turned to look at his opponent again, a very brilliant opponent who had proven himself to be dastardly in every sense of the word, not to mention immensely clever. Sherlock would almost concede that some of his more complex plans were even a challenge for him. They were almost equals, even as mirror opposites.

"I'll admit, I felt a bit thick when you had to give me a nudge in the right direction," he said grudgingly, "The trainers were by far the best Christmas present I had gotten, and I wouldn't have soon forgotten the tragic story of little Carl, dying so suddenly like that in the water."

Jim snorted derisively.

"He had so much to live for, so much talent… so much to look forward to…" Sherlock spoke slowly, carefully easing every word out, giving Jim ample time to react.

He wanted a reaction. He wanted a cringe, or a harsh insult. He wanted something brash to prove to him, just for the moment, that the reptilian genius was human.

For some reason, it was important to him.

"For curiosity's sake, why did you need to eliminate him? Did he poke fun of your scars in gym class?" Sherlock purposefully stung directly where he knew Jim would be the tenderest. He had to keep him focused, keep him off his game. The longer he talked, the more Sherlock could learn, the more clues he'd have to work on for the future.

Jim shrugged. He wasn't going to give everything away so easily. But then, if he did where would the fun be?

"He teased me," he confirmed blithely. If he _had_ sent Carl into the poison induced fit that had ended his life, he clearly wasn't preoccupied with it much. Sherlock betted that Jim's current endeavors were much more interesting to think about than some petty childish revenge he'd cooked up twenty some-odd years ago.

Sherlock squared his own shoulders and gritted his teeth together harshly. He was losing focus. He mentally kicked himself and forcibly steered his focus away from inciting reaction. He wasn't going to make Jim show any emotion, it was useless to try.

"And Mann?"

"That self-righteous prude?" Jim grimaced, "You should have heard him blather on and on about 'an equal tomorrow hand in hand with our fellow humans as brothers' blah-blah-blah!"

He crinkled his nose, as if remembering a particularly disgusting smell.

"You would have killed him too, I mean, what a bore!" he whined, "All this brotherhood nonsense makes me sick. At least our ancestors had the guts to call your kind what they were: Freaks."

Sherlock suppressed a grin. Now Jim was on the war path. With a little bit of effort he could probably push him into a rant, or at least a tirade, and then who knew what wonderful clues the prejudiced psychopath would give him.

"But now with this political correctness nonsense people take offense unless you say: vertically unrestricted or _aviohominids_. It's disgusting." He sneered.

"I could remind you that at one time you were one of us 'freaks' too." Sherlock calmly corrected.

Jim paused turned to Sherlock and sneered, "At one time? At one time? At one time I was an infant. At one time I worked at a church. What on earth does any of that matter _now_? Now I am here trying to stomp out the last of a plague that soars rampant in the gene pool, a vermin disguised as humans."

Sherlock smiled ironically. "I believe I can think of a certain German you could have taken ideas from."

Jim mirrored the smile eerily, "Even he was frightfully lax in his supposed genocide of _your_ _breed_," The spite attached to the last two words was meant to shove Jim further away from the winged people he loathed. "Imagine trying to hunt fleeing people by plane, like one would hunt ducks. How stupid was he?"

Sherlock froze at the end of the pool. He didn't want to risk missing a single word, just in case he was asked questions in the court case.

"And how stupid were the feathered fools who did get caught? They could have flown away whenever, but what happened? They died like canaries in a hole. Idiots." Jim muttered.

Sherlock remembered this lesson from boarding school, Hitler trying to slaughter the winged people of Germany, and eventually Poland in order to achieve equality among his perfect race. He hadn't just killed people with wings, in fact by comparison to his other projects, he barely made a dent in their population, but all that absorbed Sherlock's attention at that influential age was the massacre of people like him. He'd looked through a catalog and ordered a book on the subject just because of his macabre fascination with the entire bleak saga. It was the first book he'd ever read with blatant swear words in it.

He remembered the gruesome details with child-like innocence.

First Hitler claimed winged soldiers flew to the enemies during the first war and spilt secrets. Then he took away their right to fly, organize and leave the country. Then he separated them from society, claiming they had parasites and diseases. He cited studies done on pigeons and other fowl to justify his claim. He sent other citizens that he claimed were undesirable and sorted them into ghettos, but he sent winged people, meek as cattle, to live in deep caves where they could not fly away or escape. People at the front of the caves would shoot anyone trying to escape the deep abysmal blackness. Hundreds were felled like geese.

The book he'd read was filled with small excerpts from survivors who described being experimented on by Nazi doctors, and people who had had their wings cut off haphazardly in order to try and escape. When normal Germans had winged babies, they would travel in secret to frightening surgeons and have the child's wings amputated, often in horrible conditions. And if the scars were ever discovered, the children were sent to the caves anyway and the parents were no longer allowed to have children.

It was Hitler's way of cleansing the gene pool.

It had occurred to Sherlock while he was young that at any point in the perilous saga the persecuted avians could have simply flown away, preferably when they realized they were going to be persecuted. They could have saved themselves the pain and death if they had all flown off then at the beginning, abandoning Germany in favor of making a new colony full of winged people elsewhere, maybe in England where they would have been safe, and where Sherlock could have visited in the summer time.

But as the book rambled on, alternating between terror of capture and the triumph of escape, a pattern presented itself to the young Holmes.

Even though many people _did_ leave their homes and families and escape to France or America, many justified their refusal to flee by claiming that they couldn't leave their families and their lives.

Even as a young boy, Sherlock felt that was a stupid reason. Clearly, no matter what they chose to do, flee or stay, their lives would never have been the same.

"Yes, well…Sentiment I suppose," Sherlock muttered noncommittally at the wall directly in front of him.

"Stupidity more like." Jim said, "How they haven't gone the way of the Dodo already is beyond me. Still… nature can sometimes use a bit of help."

"So, you've taken a page out of Hitler's book and are using the Icarus Law as a stepping stone to taking away the rights of people born with wings, is that quite right?" Sherlock made a small advance, stepping away from the water's edge and directing his sudden inexplicable fury at the nearby wall. "Whatever is next? Lies about parasites in the media?"

And then Jim did something so heart-wrenchingly unpredictable, so completely terror laden it shocked Sherlock down to his core and stirred a fearfulness in him that he'd never experienced with another human being. Sherlock's palms began to sweat and his face felt foreign and clammy, and for the first time he doubted his decision to come to the pool.

Jim laughed, and laughed, and laughed.


End file.
